


Changes

by StarkersBazaar



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Blowjobs, Hero Worship, Light Angst, Light D/s, M/M, Peter is seventeen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Starker, Starker Week 2018, handjobs, nearly eighteen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-10 03:56:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15283065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarkersBazaar/pseuds/StarkersBazaar
Summary: Tony Stark has become accustomed to coming home to an empty facility after giving the Stark Industries staff a two-week break. He doesn't expect to come home to an emotionally raw Peter Parker in his bedroom. He doesn't expect a lot of what comes next, either.





	1. Chapter 1

It had taken some time for Tony to get accustomed to the quarters he’d had built in the Avengers Facility upstate. He’d convinced himself that after leaving the penthouse of Avengers Tower, he should try something new. New layout, new interior design, new colour scheme. But, being a creature of habit, what he had landed on was something not all that different: the same panoramic windows, though the view had changed; the same amount of space, but distributed in such a way that it seemed fresh; the same simple shapes and designs, though laid out just differently enough that he often misstepped on nightly trips to the bathroom, cursing stubbed toes and bruised shins. They were differences, sure, but not _really._ The real differences were often intangible, things that he felt in the spaces between things, in the silences between his breaths. They were made up of the emptiness lingering in Pepper’s absence.

Their partnership had broken off abruptly, after one too many risks taken, and too few opportunities for forgiveness left in their wake. Truthfully, it had _felt_ abrupt to Tony, but their separation had been nurtured and encouraged by years of countless well-intentioned but ultimately broken promises, dozens of “never agains” followed by dozens of apologies. He had been heartbroken when she left, but unlike the other significant breakups in his younger life, he hadn’t needed to _come to terms_ with it. He had been on borrowed time with Pepper, and he knew it. Her leaving had been inevitable.

Keeping busy in the wake of upset was what Tony did best. There was always something to do in this post-war world, a hundred different kinds of clean-up and reconstruction, of rebuilding relationships and reputations. Tony clung to his projects like a spider on a windshield. His most recent one had just come to an end, and in the days since, he had kept himself busy commuting to and from the city, making appearances at important meetings, working closely with officials to manage the public’s perception of the Avengers following their most recent skirmish. It was important work, but at the end of each long day, Tony was left feeling hollow. He wondered what the hell had convinced him to end his summer project in the middle of a dreary August. He should have drawn it out as long as he could.

The Avengers facility had been on a skeleton staff for the past several days, after Tony had decided to grant most of his staff the last two weeks of August off. He had called it a _pre-emptive mitigation of employee fatigue_ , and it had been well-received by his staff and interns. Truthfully, Tony had just wanted to be alone. He had regretted the decision almost immediately.

He had been working closely with Peter Parker over the summer, calling the work _a prestigious summer student opportunity in the country’s leading science and tech facility._ It had looked great on Peter’s college applications, and the pay – directly into an educational trust fund – had certainly helped to give him his choice of schools to attend in the coming months. May had been thrilled, and had consented to Peter staying at the Avengers Facility in order to work closely with his mentor and friend. Peter had hummed and sighed over needing consent – he was an _Avenger,_ he had reminded them – but as his eighteenth birthday had at the time been months away, he’d had no choice but to defer to May’s judgment. There had been no end to the good-natured teasing from both May and Tony for weeks.

He was a good kid, Peter. Smart as hell, dedicated as anything, and just enough of a know-it-all to provoke Tony _all the time_. Peter knew it, too – knew which buttons to push to get a rise out of his mentor, knew which topics to subtly correct him on, knew just how far to push it before flashing a cheeky grin of concession. In the early days of their association, it had sometimes irked Tony. Now, knowing the boy as well as he did, it only endeared him to him. He saw something of himself in Peter, in his brilliance and drive, but he was softer around the edges. He was gentle in a way Tony had never been, with a soft-hearted vulnerability that was ever-present just below the surface. There was never any wonder why people were drawn to Peter. Tony had felt that draw from the very beginning.

As Tony returned to the empty facility in the evening of a late August day, he could immediately feel the absence of the young man. After his weeks-long stay, Peter’s mark was everywhere at the facility. Just entering the residential portion of the complex, he recalled Peter’s excitement at learning he would have his own suite of rooms for the summer. He approached the door to that suite, still ajar from the day Peter had packed up and returned to Queens to prepare for college life. Tony paused in the doorway, looking into the darkened space, feeling an echo of Peter’s presence in what the boy had repeatedly called his “apartment.” Tony smiled at the memory.

After a moment he continued on, through the facility, toward his own quarters. He passed through a now-deserted communal area made up of an eat-in kitchen on one side, and on the other, a lounge setup with an enormous couch and an appropriately huge television. It had been almost constantly bustling with activity while the program was running and the facility was fully staffed, but tonight, it was still and quiet. Peter’s favourite spot on the couch – directly in the centre, for the best view of the TV – still bore a soft indent where he had parked himself night after night, watching movies and marathoning TV shows, always trying to coax Tony into joining him. It had worked some nights, when Tony had finished early, or when he had simply thrown in the towel to get the kid off his back. From where he stood now, behind the massive couch, he could picture the shape of the boy, slouched inelegantly over his crossed legs. But his mind’s eye remembered a warmer view, softer, taken in with a measure of self-admonishment from the armchair to the side of the couch. He remembered watching Peter watching the screen, his face a contradiction of the hard angles of a man’s, and the soft, ingenuous features of his youth. He could still envision the way the cool flicker of the TV would skip all across the planes of his face, making his still and intent expressions dance with light. He felt a pang of melancholy as he remembered, even as he chastised himself for lingering too long in the memory of those stolen looks.

With a heavy exhale, Tony left the communal area and walked toward the long hallway leading to his quarters.

“Friday, low lights.”

The windowless hallway awoke with soft, warm lighting as Tony passed through. He kicked off his shoes at what Peter used to jokingly call _the front door._ Made of heavy wood, it separated Tony’s private living space from the rest of the residential facility. He pushed it open, stepping into one of the few spaces in which images of the boy would not be stirred up like dusty apparitions in an old house. He let the door close behind him with a heavy thud, shutting out the light along with it.

 _There’s a shelving unit there,_ he reminded himself as he stepped carefully through the unlit space, testing himself in the darkness of his new home. The entrance into the living space was a mass of shadows cast by only the fading light outside the windows of the suite. He squinted as he moved through it. _A table there. Chair. And where the hell is the –_

He cursed under his breath as he stubbed his toe against the bar. _There it is._

In the near-dark, Tony groped through the bar for the familiar shape of his favourite bottle. He poured himself a drink. On another day, he might have lounged in his chair by the window, looking out at the gathering darkness so unlike anything a person could find in the city. It had been a clear day, and would surely be a night of thousands of stars. But he was not in the mood to linger in this unsettled feeling for longer than he already had. He threw the drink back, left his glass on the bar, and headed to his bedroom.

The moment his foot crossed the bedroom threshold, Tony stopped in his tracks. The room’s floor-to-ceiling windows allowed in just enough of the fading evening light to illustrate a familiar form, compact and curled up on top of his bedspread. The boy’s face was half-buried in one of the pillows, clutched in arms drowning in a too-large flannel. The last echoes of the day’s illumination traced the edges of his withdrawn form, like a penitent in a long-forgotten oil painting. It took Tony a moment to bring the boy’s name to his lips.

“Peter?”

“Hi,” came a half-hearted reply. Such a small word filled the room with a heaviness that stirred Tony’s concern. His heart began to beat faster, out of fear that something could have happened. Something _must_ have happened. Why else would Peter have turned up here like this, unannounced? Why else would he be…laying there like that? His brain instructed his feet to continue toward the bed, one in front of the other, same as always. His body stayed defiantly still.

“ ’s everything alright? Hold on – does May know you’re here?”

“No.” He could easily have been answering either question, or both.

“Alright. Friday, call May Parker, let her know her nephew’s safe. You,” he gestured to Peter, “can think of an excuse later.”

Peter nodded, his hair rustling quietly against the pillowcase.

Tony pushed his glasses up as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, frowning with worry. It took him a moment in the weighty silence between them for Tony to gather himself.

“Well, you’re gonna have to tell me what’s going on, Pete. How did you even get here? Did Happy – ”

“Bus,” Peter murmured, his voice partially muffled by the pillow. “And then the train…then a taxi…”

Tony made a face, confused. “You could have just called, saved yourself a little money – ”

“Came in the suit,” Peter interrupted. He pushed himself up into a seated position, still not meeting Tony’s gaze. He gestured to the armchair in the corner of the bedroom. His backpack laid on the floor next to the chair, and his blue and red suit, nearly black in this light, was slung carelessly over the seat and arms. It looked as deflated as the boy sounded.

“People like to give a superhero a free ride,” he continued, his tone lifting just enough to suggest this was a half-hearted shot at levity. He raised his gaze and attempted a tight-lipped smile. The evening light glinted in his dark eyes. His cheeks shone. Tony frowned.

“Friday, lights.”

“ _No - ”_ Peter twisted away in the sudden illumination, tucking his chin into his shoulder. He quickly reached up with a hand tightly gripping his too-long sleeve, wiping at his cheek.

“ _Low_ lights,” Tony mercifully corrected. He finally found himself striding across the room to the edge of his bed, where Peter sat. He looked smaller than usual, arms folded protectively around himself in the flannel that was at least two sizes too big. He sniffed, his face turned stubbornly away from Tony. A flush of embarrassment coloured Peter’s face, all the way to his ears.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark,” came a voice too heavy with grief. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Hey,” Tony began, his tone gentle. “No need to apologize. Door’s always open. You alright? You hurt?”

His heart still pounded as he spoke, not sure what to make of the situation. He knelt in front of Peter, whose head remained resolutely turned away. He didn’t move to speak. Tony had exhausted the only words that would come to him, his mind racing with everything but the right thing to say. Though only seconds of silence had passed, they had grown to an unbearable size in this space, swallowing the pair up. The longer Peter remained quiet, the more Tony’s anxiety gripped him.

“C’mon, kid. Talk to me. What’s – ”

“It’s my uncle’s birthday,” Peter said abruptly, punctuated with a hard sniff. His voice was thick.

“Oh – hey, I’m sorry – ”

Peter shook his head. “ ’s okay, just…I been thinking about him a lot.” He looked down at his hands as he fiddled with the undone cuffs of the flannel. Tony looked it over, the shirt that seemed too ill-fitting even on a kid whose entire wardrobe seemed to be made up of ill-fitting clothes. He wondered if this item might have belonged to Ben.

“We were trying to, like…make it a happy day, I guess, so we went to his favourite pizza joint, and May was telling me how he would have been proud of me, and how she’s proud, and then it turned into how all this…this huge stuff is happening, and it’s such an important time…”

He trailed off, his eyes focused on nothing, his eyebrows drawn together.

“Well…it is,” Tony offered, raising himself up and moving to sit next to Peter on the edge of the bed. “Lotta big things going on in your life right now.”

“Yeah.” He breathed a short, mirthless laugh.

“Hey, there _are._ Prestigious internship done and dusted, Cambridge in – what, two weeks? Worldwide fame as Spider-Man, girls chasing after your alter ego day and night…” He bumped Peter’s shoulder with his own, watching his face for any sign of a smile, any break in the pained expression that creased his brow and caused Tony’s to crease in kind.

“Stop it.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. Peter paused for a long moment before continuing.

“It’s just…after Ben died, and these huge things started happening, I felt alone. Totally alone, and really…lost. Just…everything changed. It felt like I didn’t even fit in my family anymore, having to keep all these secrets from May for so long, and it just being the two of us…I felt like I couldn’t talk to anybody. I felt like all these pieces of my life were never gonna fit back together again.”

He closed his eyes, breathing in deeply, exhaling with a gentle shudder. Tony realized the boy had begun to tremble.

“But all of that bad stuff I was feeling…it started to go away after I met you.”

Tony felt a rush of warmth at those words. Despite himself, his heart had begun to beat faster. He watched Peter’s profile as he tried to compose a response befitting that unexpected sentiment. He took in the sight of the younger man, his expression tense, mouth pursed. He couldn’t help but recall again the sight of Peter illuminated by the blue glow of the television. He looked so much the same, but here, something heavy weighted his expression. He seemed different here in Tony’s room. Overburdened.

Eventually, though he hadn’t yet found the words, Tony opened his mouth to attempt to speak. He was relieved when, just as he did, it was Peter who broke the silence.

“You’ve changed my life,” he began, his voice scarcely louder than a whisper. “You made me feel like I can actually _be_ the things Ben thought I could be. The things you hope I’ll be.”

“Hey…that’s not down to me. You made a name for yourself in Queens way before I ever gave you the suit.”

“But that’s not all I mean, though.” Peter finally turned to look at Tony, his brow creased. “It’s…it’s how you push me to be better, and how you…”

He paused for a moment, evidently struggling with his words. He was holding back. Tony gave a gentle push of encouragement, his curiosity shamefully piqued.

“What?”

Peter had gathered handfuls of flannel into his fists, his fingers tightening and loosening around the material. His gaze shifted, looking past Tony as he spoke. He drew in a deep breath.

“This summer…was the most _right_ I’ve felt in a really long time. It feels _right_ to be here, and to know I’m not the only one who knows all the things I know, and to…to be a part of something really important. And that _is_ down to you. You made this all happen, and you made me feel like…like I wasn’t a freak.”

The weight in that last word was palpable. Tony knew immediately that that word had been flung at Peter enough times it had left a mark. He remembered bearing that label himself in his younger days. It must have been worse for Peter, orphaned as young as he was, as uncommonly brilliant as he was. As soft-hearted as he was. He grasped for words out of his reach, ones that Peter needed to hear to lift the troubles from his face. They slipped through his fingers.

“I don’t know how I’m gonna do any of this,” Peter continued. He looked at Tony, frowning. “I can’t do this alone. I can’t – ”

“Whoa, whoa whoa whoa, who said anything about _alone?_ I’m not going anywhere. Neither’s your aunt. Your friends – ”

“No, but _I am!”_

Tony pulled back abruptly, watching Peter’s expression shift through a dizzying array of emotion. The young man shook his head, looking at Tony imploringly.

“I am,” he repeated, his voice breaking. “But I’m – I can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t go.”

Tony put a hand of encouragement on Peter’s shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze.

“Look, I know it’s hard. A lot of things are changing. But Cambridge isn’t that far – ”

“I don’t _want_ everything to change,” Peter exclaimed, his face flushing with colour, the glisten of tears springing once again to his eyes. “ _This_ isn’t in Cambridge. _You’re_ not in Cambridge.”

He looked at Tony beseechingly, just for a moment, before his expression began to crumple. He looked down, his breath hitching. Tony’s own breaths came quick and shallow, still trying to find his footing among Peter’s roiling emotions. He hadn’t expected this to be as hard as it was for the kid, and he once again found himself at a loss. He reached to pull Peter against his side in a supportive half-embrace, running his hand up and down Peter’s arm.

“It’s alright, kid,” he murmured. Peter shifted to lean his head against Tony’s collar, bringing his own arm around Tony’s waist. The older man tensed for a moment at the intimacy of the gesture. It had been a long time since anyone had been this physically close to him, and his body’s protective alarms warned that this was too much. He held perfectly still for a few shallow breaths, feeling the slight jolts and tremors of Peter’s body against his own as the younger man breathed gentle, silent sobs.

“It’s alright,” he repeated. He closed his eyes, resting his chin on top of Peter’s head. “It’s alright.”

As Peter’s breathing gradually began to steady, Tony felt his own tension begin to ease. He allowed himself to recognize Peter’s weight against him, to feel the way Peter’s breaths moved both their bodies just a bit, in time with one another. The silence of the room, in the wake of so much emotion, made his ears ring.

It felt good. This tactile closeness, this sense of feeling needed. The warmth of another person, someone he cared for immensely, held close against him. It had been so long. For a moment, he allowed himself the full acknowledgment of the smell of Peter, so much of it emanating from the thick mess of wavy hair upon which Tony rested his chin. He felt a too-familiar tug of shame for recognizing that he enjoyed it. That he enjoyed feeling Peter’s warm breath on his chest.

They were still for a moment, arms curled around each other, before Tony felt a shift in Peter’s weight. He lifted his chin to allow Peter to pull away. The young man’s unruly hair rustled softly against Tony’s lapel as he moved, but he only seemed to push closer to Tony. The older man realized too late that Peter’s hand had moved to push his collar aside, making space for a searching mouth to press gently against Tony’s skin.

Reflexively, Tony pulled back, his heart beginning to pound as his mind caught up to the electrified feeling Peter’s lips had left against his collarbone. Peter pulled back, too, his fraught expression doing little to convince Tony that it was an accident, a miscalculation, a mistake. His wide eyes moved back and forth between Tony’s before lowering with a timid curiosity to the man’s lips. Alarms for Tony again, but different this time; they warned him against what had happened, and what could – but shouldn’t –  happen again. But this time, they were accompanied by an indecorous draw that for months Tony had attempted to brush off, chalking it up to an expression of his own egotism, just a bit of reveling in the hero worship the young man readily heaped upon him. Peter freely and ardently held Tony up as a paragon of ingenuity and heroism, which _of course_ felt good. Tony admired Peter in return, admired his drive and intelligence, his openness and enthusiasm for learning. He admired Peter’s unfailing _goodness_ , how without guile he was for someone who had experienced so much hardship. They had developed an uncommon closeness over the past years, one which had only deepened in the weeks Peter had stayed just a few rooms away from Tony.

Still, he knew that none of that meant this line should be crossed. If anything, that closeness should be protected from anything that might harm it. Tony’s gut churned as the gravity of the situation wrestled with his own ill-advised curiosity.

But, again, Peter’s eyes moved to meet his, and for just a moment, he couldn’t remember why he should say no.

Peter kissed Tony, the softest brush of lips against lips, and then drew back again to take in his expression. His dark eyes betrayed a mix of worry and wonder, the apprehension within them thrown off-balance by a resolute hunger. Tony recognized the younger man’s eagerness. He had seen it in so many pairs of eyes before. Never in Peter’s. At least, never that he’d let himself notice. A suffocating heat had spread through his neck and chest, and he opened his mouth to attempt to speak. Peter’s name was swallowed up in their second kiss.

He was strong, quick, and agile – he was Spider-Man, after all – and in a flurry of motion the younger man was astride Tony, hands on either side of his jaw, kissing him with uninhibited desperation. At first, Tony’s hands had reflexively moved to grip Peter’s wrists, his body’s last-ditch effort to express some kind of appropriate resistance. But he was consumed by whatever Peter had ignited within him, and in moments he had begun to push eagerly into the kiss, his heavy breaths echoing Peter’s.

Tony’s hands moved down Peter’s arms from his wrists and back up to his shoulders, then descended over the sides of his perfectly sculpted abdomen. They stopped on his hips, fingers gripping firmly into his well-muscled flesh. The young man pushed forward against Tony in response, who felt an unmistakeable stiffness pressed against his stomach. Peter hummed a willing moan against Tony’s mouth.  The sound seemed to travel all the way through him, raising goosebumps all over his body. He felt himself begin to stiffen, too, and shifted his weight beneath Peter to take some of the strain off.

Every sensation seemed to blur together. The heat of Peter’s breath against his mouth, the weight of the younger man in his lap, the grasping fingers at the sides of his head, threaded through his hair. His skin prickled as those fingers began to trail downward, one hand moving between them down his chest, his stomach, until…

Tony drew in a sharp breath as Peter began to palm the front of his trousers. It was that gesture, that shift in gears, that hurtled Tony back to reality. He broke off their kiss with a wet _smack_ and Peter, unbothered, slouched to press his face into Tony’s neck. Two sides of Tony fought for ground as the younger man’s tongue rolled heavily against his skin. He ached for this, wanted nothing more than to forget himself and continue on just as they were. But the alarms he had ignored before refused to be silenced as he came to recognize just how desperately he wanted something so wrong.

“Hey – hey,” he murmured, his grip on Peter’s hips loosening. Peter hummed against his neck, his hand still working at Tony’s hardon. He shifted positions to reach down with his other hand, fumbling with Tony’s belt. Tony’s pulse thrummed loudly in his ears.

“Kid – ”

Peter pulled away from Tony’s neck, looking at him with eyes full of nervous excitement. But taking in the look on Tony’s face, his expression began to shift. When Tony finally spoke – _we can’t do this_ – an intense flush coloured Peter’s face.

“Oh my god,” he breathed, mortified. “I – I’m sorry, I – ”

All remnants of the previous moments had been swept away by the crushing embarrassment radiating off of Peter. He stumbled gracelessly as he got off Tony’s lap, his posture self-conscious.

“I’m sorry.”

Peter crossed the room to the armchair where his belongings sat, grabbing his suit in a fist and picking up his backpack with the other. Tony stood, his stomach churning as he watched the younger man starting toward the door, uttering another apology.

“Peter.”

Obediently, he stopped in his tracks, though Tony could tell it was a Herculean effort keeping Peter from bolting out of the room. He stood, half-turned toward Tony, his face still flushed.

“It’s okay.”

Peter breathed a doubtful laugh. Tony wasn’t sure what to do or say to make things right. He had never found himself in a situation quite like this, and certainly never with someone like Peter. The boy’s discomfort was evident in his silence and his body language, and all Tony knew was he had to try to alleviate some of that. He had to make Peter know he had done nothing wrong. _Tony, on the other hand…_

“Listen…it’s been a really hard day, and I don’t want you feeling bad about this, too. We all…we’ve all been there.”

Peter shook his head, his eyes directed downward. “I shouldn’a done that.”

“Hey – listen to me. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. If you want, we can talk about it in the morning, okay?”

Peter looked up with an expression of disbelief.

“…I can stay?”

Despite the weight of everything that had just happened, Tony _tsk_ ed, rolling his eyes.

“Of _course_ you can stay.” He pointed out the door, hoping to make himself more clear. “In your rooms. In _any_ rooms, I guess – nobody else here right now – but, y’know. They’re yours, so.”

Peter allowed a tight-lipped half-smile.

“Thanks, Mr. Stark,” he said quietly, giving Tony one last self-conscious glance before heading out of the room, through the length of Tony’s quarters. From the bedroom, Tony heard the heavy front door close with a _thud._ The boy seemed to take all the air with him when he left.

Tony sat back down on the edge of the bed, leaned forward with his head cradled in his hands.

_What the hell have you done now?_

There was no reasoning, no justification that could paint a veneer of acceptability over what had just happened. What Tony had allowed to happen. They had been thoughts only, and for so long Tony had been an expert at keeping them locked away behind a door he knew ought never be opened.

 _They had only been thoughts,_ or so he had lied to himself, just like he had lied at so many other points over the past weeks. It had been more than that, as much as he had wanted to believe it wasn’t. It had been the countless, brief moments where Tony had let his guard down, and had allowed himself to feel the adoration that Peter freely shared. It had been the times he had caught Peter looking at him when the boy had thought he’d been subtle. It had been the way those stolen glances made Tony’s stomach swoop, the way it did when he felt the intoxicating allure of infatuation. He had lied to himself and dismissed Peter’s part as harmless hero worship, all the while yearning for it to be more, even as he had reprimanded himself in those moments for being so unbelievably vain.

There was no lying to himself anymore. There was nothing that could explain away what had happened between them, except to admit that, after all this time, it was exactly what he had wanted.

Tony stood, crossing the room to where his armchair sat next to the window. He touched the armrest, where Peter’s suit – the one Tony had so carefully developed for him, the one he had created with the safety and protection of the young man at the heart of its every function – had lain moments before. He remembered how nervous he had been when he had first sent Peter out into the world with the suit. He had created the complex group of monitoring protocols to make sure he knew when and if the boy was in trouble, and he had been endlessly grateful for his foresight on a number of occasions. But as Peter had grown into his role as Spider-Man, and had proved that he didn’t need to be under Tony’s watchful eye at all times, he had eased up on the supervision. It hadn’t been easy. So many days, he had to fight the urge to remotely reactivate the suit’s tracker, or to network with Karen to check up on Peter. But he knew that he had to allow Peter the freedom to make mistakes in order to learn from them.

 _Maybe this was another mistake for Peter to learn from. Or for_ you _to learn from._

Tony sighed, gripping the arm of the chair and spinning it round so that it faced out the panoramic window. He slipped out of his suit jacket and tossed it aside, sitting with a weary sigh.  He set his glasses on the small table next to the chair, rubbed his eyes, and propped his foot on the table’s edge.

He had been right – a night of thousands of stars. The entire sky was littered with them. He sat for a long while, looking out at them, squinting just slightly to make out the faintest hint of the milky way.

He had sat here so many evenings, doing just this, but the stars seemed different to him now. The expanse of night sky was more great and terrifying now that he had been out amongst those flecks of light. He remembered how terrifying it had been, stuck on a distant world with no reason to believe he or any of the rest of them would ever return to the blue orb they called home. He wondered around which of these stars Titan orbited, or if it was one of these stars at all. He remembered looking up at the sky all those billions of miles away, wondering if his own star was one of the flickering lights in Titan’s sky.

Allowing himself to think of those days was something Tony didn’t often do, and the weight of the memories sent his mind reeling. He felt dizzy as he recalled his fear at seeing Peter on board the vessel, knowing – or at least believing at that point – that his own actions had sealed the boy’s fate. The hours that followed had been too fast and too intense to allow him the space to worry about what that meant for the young man, and what that meant for all those who loved him back home. But after the battle, when there was only silence, and all that was left of Peter was ash on Tony’s blood-stained hands, his grief and his guilt had consumed him.

_And if you died…I feel like that’s on me._

He had vowed at that time, if there was any way to reverse what had happened, that he would protect Peter at every opportunity. That he would hurt him, if he needed to, in order to save him. It had been damn near impossible after Peter’s overwhelming return to not take away his suits and try to convince him to never again patrol as Spider-Man. He had lost him once already, and it had been his fault. He couldn’t bear to imagine losing him again, for good.

After some time, Tony had made an uneasy peace with the knowledge that Peter could not be happy unless he was doing his part to help people. Instead of trying to stop him, Tony poured himself into developing still smarter tech to protect the young man. He was constantly improving the defensive capabilities of Peter’s suits, reminding himself that there was no stopping the kid once his mind was set on something, and it was better to have him out in the world in those suits rather than without them. But it had been a struggle. He had only just begun to allow himself to release those fears, for brief moments here and there, reassured by months of patrolling that Peter was just as capable as he knew him to be, and that he was going to be okay. Having him so close by during the summer student program had helped, too – not only because he was further from the city and so less likely to end up in danger, but because Tony knew where he was at all times.

But now, with nothing but change on the horizon, Tony’s fears had begun to creep back in. Cambridge was a stone’s throw from Boston, a major city with more than its share of trouble, and Peter would surely take to defending its citizens the way he had in New York. At least with New York, Tony had good reason to be in the city multiple times per week. He could be there at short notice if the kid needed him. In Boston, Peter would be on his own.

In Boston, he wouldn’t be _here._

Tony’s mind returned to the events of the evening, of Peter opening up to him about his fears, and admitting that this was where he wanted to be. His stomach churned as he struggled to reconcile his desire for Peter to continue on his path of academic achievement, and the inexcusable hope that he would decide to stay on at Stark Industries instead. He knew that the latter was, at best, selfish. He couldn’t bring himself to admit what it was at worst.

Tony’s guilt told him he had to protect Peter from anything that could harm him. He knew it wouldn’t always be possible, but when it was, it was his responsibility. He owed it to him.

_How can I protect him from what’s out there if I can’t even protect him from myself?_

Tony sighed, resting his head against the chair’s back. His thoughts continued to spiral in a cycle of guilt, shame, and worry, until eventually, he drifted into an uneasy sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

A clatter that pierced the silence of the compound startled Tony into consciousness. His adrenaline rushed, an unhelpful side-effect of his PTSD, and he leapt from his chair, groping around in the darkness.

“Friday, lights.”

He squinted against the sudden brightness, hurrying out of the room and through the windowless corridor. He pushed open the heavy wooden door, eyes alert, and rushed toward the continuing sounds emanating from just ahead, his heart pounding.

When he saw Peter, clad only in his boxer shorts, bent down and picking up pieces of a broken dish, he let out an audible sigh of relief. Peter jerked upward at the sound, his eyes wide.

“Mr. Stark, I’m so sorry – I didn’t mean to wake you, I just wanted to get something to eat and I knocked this off the counter, I’m – ”

Tony could see the concern grow in the young man’s eyes as he took in the sight of him. Peter’s mouth pulled into a thin line.

“…are you okay?”

Tony nodded, rubbing his eyes as he worked to consciously slow his breathing.

“Yeah, it’s just my…”

He trailed off, gesturing vaguely with his hand, but it was easy to tell that Peter knew what he meant. His compassionate expression reminded Tony that Peter knew this about him, that he had been through enough with him to know that sometimes, even small things could set him off.

“God – I’m so sorry, I shouldn’a been – ”

“It’s alright. It’s okay.”

Peter watched him for another moment, his jaw flexing. “Uh – okay…um.”

He turned away then, moving over to the trash can to drop the broken dish pieces into it. Tony saw there were still several smaller pieces lying broken on the tile where Peter had been standing. He knelt to pick them up.

“Hey – I got it, I got it,” Peter insisted, returning to the spot and gently touching Tony’s wrist. “Lemme get it.”

Tony obliged, standing back up, watching as Peter picked up the last pieces and deposited them in the trash. His eyes moved over to the counter, where Peter had been bringing together the elements of his midnight snack before he’d accidentally broken the bowl. An open box of cereal made almost entirely of sugar, a carton of milk, a spoon, and an already half-drunk glass of orange juice.

“You, uh…you okay? Need some water or…?”

Peter moved to the glass cupboard, pulling out a tall glass and turning on the tap to full cold, holding his fingers under the stream to test the temperature.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Hey, listen – I’m gonna head back – ”

“Here,” Peter insisted. He held the now-full glass out to Tony. “You look kinda pale. It’ll help.”

Tony made a face, but decided to humour Peter. He took the water, drinking it down. When he looked at Peter over the glass, the younger man averted his eyes, moving to lean against the breakfast bar.

“Time’s it?” Tony asked needlessly, his eyes flicking to the digital display on the nearby stove. 2:42 AM. He sighed, rubbing his forehead.

“Yeah…sorry, I shoulda been more careful. Just couldn’t sleep.”

Tony nodded, offering a tense smile even though Peter still looked at anything but him.

“Well, uh – don’t let me keep you up,” Tony began, stepping back from the counter. “Night.”

“Wait – wait.”

Tony paused, watching as Peter took a step closer to him before stopping dead, as though an invisible wall separated them. He met Tony’s gaze now, his brow furrowed in thought.

“Listen…I know, uh…you said we would talk about it in the morning, but I uh, just…I wanted to say, I’m sorry if what I did made you uncomfortable.”

Tony’s stomach knotted as Peter spoke. He wasn’t anywhere near prepared to have this conversation, though he doubted another four or five hours would equip him any better for it. He regarded the boy with trepidation, searching desperately for the right words to say. He wanted to reassure Peter that he had done nothing wrong. He wanted to make sure Peter knew he wasn’t upset with him. He wanted to let him know it was okay, all while making necessary boundaries clear. He circled the words, trying in the silence that swelled between them, to arrange them in just the right way. And then Peter continued.

“But…I’m not sorry it happened.”

And, just like that, the words Tony had been preparing were blown apart like scattering leaves. His eyebrows drew together. He wanted to respond, tried desperately to take in the words and process them, but his mind was only occupied by the naked and vulnerable expression on Peter’s face.

“…Are you?”

Tony looked down, folding his arms. How could he possibly answer that? His adrenaline had begun to course again, a stress response during an already anxious time. He flexed his jaw, feeling the rush of heat build in its familiar way, from his churning stomach through his chest, up to his neck, bringing an immense warmth to his face. He took a deep breath, reminding himself that this was just a physical reaction. He had felt it before. He was tense. He wasn’t sleeping. He hadn’t eaten. His cortisol levels were elevated. It was a predictable physiological reaction to a period of stress. That was all.

“Mr. Stark…are you?”

He raised his eyes, his jaw clenched and expression pained. All the control he tried desperately to exercise, and Peter’s searching gaze threatened to undo him. He couldn’t lie to Peter. He couldn’t tell him the truth. There were no words that would suffice.

“What do you want me to say, kid?” he quietly pleaded.

“Say it’s okay,” Peter implored. “I don’t…I don’t wanna have messed us up.”

“It’s _not_ okay,” Tony exclaimed, a shade too harshly. Peter jumped, his hurt evident and immediate. Tony sighed, feeling his composure coming apart at the seams.

“Not – not what you did – that’s – I’m not upset with you, Peter.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s not okay that I _let_ it happen. It’s not okay that…” _That I wanted it to happen. That I enjoyed it. That I wanted it to keep happening._

Peter surely understood where Tony was headed, and he straightened up, taking a deep breath.

“I’m an adult,” he said, a shade of defiance in his tone. Tony scoffed.

“Hey – I’m adult enough to put on that suit and fight,” he argued, pointing toward his rooms. “I’m adult enough to be an Avenger.”

“I know – ”

“No, you don’t. I was adult enough on Titan.”

Tony’s expression darkened, the rawness of the memory stirring an unpleasant chord in him. He raised a finger, gesturing as he spoke.

“You _stowed away_ and ended up risking your _life_ – ”

“Yeah? And you were glad I was there, because I _helped_ you guys.”

“You could have gotten yourself killed! And not it’s-a-great-day-for-a-comeback killed, but _killed dead._ And whose fault would that have been? Huh? Who would have had to come back here and tell your Aunt May?”

“That didn’t happen – ”

“It damn near did! Listen to me. If you’re gonna be an adult, you’ve gotta _act_ like one. You’ve gotta know when to fight, and when to back off. Jesus, Peter, you do these reckless things and what if – what if I can’t protect you? I can’t – ”

Tony stopped himself abruptly, rubbing his hand over the lower half of his face. He looked down for a moment, his dark eyes wide with a mix of feelings. He wasn’t just talking about Titan. He wasn’t just talking about the risks Peter took as an Avenger. It was absurd – hours earlier, this amalgam of emotion and conflict was an inconvenient hypothetical to be ignored and forgotten.

Now, standing here in front of Peter, he felt lain bare.

When he raised his eyes again, Peter’s expression had softened. The boldness in his face had been replaced with the concern Tony’s actions brought forth too often in him.

There was a lengthy silence between them, the kind that seems to inflate and engulf a space, becoming harder to break with each passing second. Tony didn’t know if it was a game of chicken, or if Peter had for once nothing to say. It was Tony who eventually spoke, his voice carefully collected.

“I can’t go through something like that again.”

“Why?” Peter pressed, the very leading question in itself a demand, tempered only by the gentle tone of his voice.

Tony shook his head, wincing. Peter was a smart kid. He knew, and he chipped away, watching as Tony’s armour cracked.

“Why?” he said again, folding his arms across his chest.

Tony frowned, certain his annoyance was clear to the younger man.

“Because I care about you.”

“You care about Stephen too, you had one of these talks with him lately?”

“Watch it.”

“Mr. Stark, it’s _okay!_ ” Peter exclaimed, letting his arms flop to his sides. “I’m an adult, and I’m – I’m not backing off.”

Tony’s heart had begun pounding again, his pulse thundering in his ears. He tensed as Peter stepped toward him, and more still when he felt Peter’s hands at the sides of his face.

“I’m not backing off. It’s okay,” Peter repeated. “It’s okay…”

And Tony’s armour crumbled.


	3. Chapter 3

Peter kissed like it was the last time he ever would, with all the eagerness and passion of someone making the most of something they knew might not last. Tony sank into it this time, feeling lightheaded in the swift cascade of relief and exhilaration. The rawness of their argument had electrified the space between them, and as their hands grasped at the peaks and valleys of each other, his mind’s eye painted each touch with a blaze of light.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d kissed someone so passionately, and certainly couldn’t remember feeling as desired as Peter made him feel, clinging to him with his astonishing grip. Each breathless sound Peter made against Tony’s mouth was an affirmation, like the movements of Tony’s hands over Peter’s skin. His touch was insecure at first, but came quickly to learn the shapes and surfaces of the young man. He favoured the small of Peter’s back, and the way the young man arched into him whenever he touched him there.

Peter’s hands explored Tony’s body with unwavering confidence, running up inside his t-shirt and over his stomach, around his hips, over his ass. He slowly brought them back around to Tony’s front, fingers trailing along the inside of his waistband, pausing when he reached the belt buckle. He pulled back from the older man’s lips, trailing smaller kisses along his jaw, down his neck. As he gently tongued the curve of Tony’s collar, his fingers slid out of the waistband, his right hand coming to rest against the stiffness below his belt. Tony drew in a breath at that, and Peter pulled back to look up at the older man, his eyes wide, seeking permission.

Tony allowed himself to acknowledge and immerse himself in the Adonic beauty of the young man before him, imperfect in the most charming ways. His eyes traced Peter’s features, lingering for a moment on his mouth, reddened by the coarseness of Tony’s facial hair. With deliberate, teasing purpose, Peter slowly wet his lips.

“Please,” he said softly. “I want this. If it’s…if you do, too.”

The words, polite as they were though coloured with the tinge of a young man’s demanding, shook off the last of Tony’s uncertainty. There was no point in trying to deny how he wanted the younger man. He needed only to summon the courage to say _yes_. He regarded Peter closely, sure he could see himself in the boy’s dark eyes. Sure it was evident to Peter that, in that moment, Tony was inescapably _his_.

He drew in a deep breath, and gave a permissive nod.

Peter’s mouth found the same spot on Tony’s collar as it had before, picking up so near to where they had left off. He was eager, undoubtedly, but for all the confidence he had shown just moments before, Tony knew this was still a bridge to cross. He let Peter take his time, tentatively palming Tony’s cock through his trousers, kissing every exposed inch of Tony’s neck.

Tony closed his eyes when Peter’s hands finally moved to his belt. Familiar creaks and clinks of leather and metal as the buckle came undone. The feel of his shirt rustling against the hairs of his stomach as Peter pushed it up. The electric brush of Peter’s fingers against his skin as he fumbled with the button of his trousers, pulling down the fly. All of it happening in a brief moment that seemed to stretch well beyond the few seconds that had passed.

He opened his eyes when he heard Peter shift, and found the younger man meeting his gaze as he lowered to his knees. Tony remembered the amount of times he’d had to force images like this _out_ of his thoughts, and now they played out before him in perfect, vivid colour. His peripheral vision was a hazy vignette, and all focus was on the beautiful face that looked up at him with so much want.

Tony exhaled as Peter’s fingers curled around the waist of his trousers and boxer-briefs, pulling them carefully down. He watched Peter’s expression as he took in the sight of Tony’s painfully hard cock. He seemed nervous, maybe, but with the certainty his earlier words had promised, he took it in his hand and gave a few slow strokes.

“You ever done this before?” Tony asked quietly. Peter looked up, answering with a small head-shake, all the while his hand continuing to work at Tony. It took the older man a moment to find his next words, half-paralyzed by the sight before him, but the words were important. He had to know Peter knew.

“We can stop…any time.”

Peter just smiled a little, bringing his left hand up to work along with his right. He pressed his lips to the tip of Tony’s cock, leaving a wet kiss, and then another, before tentatively taking the tip into his mouth. His tongue began to roll against Tony, who let out a sharp breath.

Watching Peter like this was so much more than Tony could have anticipated. Letting himself sink into the moment, allowing the desires he’d denied for so long and kept so deeply hidden to come to light like this, stoked Tony’s confidence and helped to shake off the last remnants of his apprehension.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “That’s good…”

The words encouraged Peter on, and before long, he was pushing to take more into his mouth. It was clear that Tony’s thickness made this a challenge, and Peter wasn’t without the awkwardness of a first-timer trying to find their rhythm, but he was determined. His hands worked what his lips couldn’t, and just as Tony became accustomed to the pattern of sensations, Peter would pull away with a wet _pop_ and run his lips up and down the length, or tongue at the pulsing underside, before taking Tony back into his mouth.

At one moment, while Peter tongued the base of Tony’s cock, his hands began to wander. Tony’s skin prickled as Peter’s fingertips traced his hip bones, the sides of his abdomen, the small of his back. They made their way gradually to his ass, pressing into his flesh with a firmness that took Tony by surprise.

Peter dragged his tongue up Tony’s length and took him back into his mouth, at the same time pulling tentatively at his hips, again and again as he worked Tony’s cock in time. The older man felt a surge of excitement as Peter guided his hips, his intention clear but his way of going about it so irresistibly coy. He knew what Peter asked for, and knew he was too timid to say the words outright.

“Mm…is that what you want?” he asked, his voice low.

Peter pulled back, letting Tony out of his mouth, and gave a shy nod.

Tony watched Peter for a moment, savouring the sight of him kneeling before him, waiting. He almost felt bad for him – his boxer shorts were visibly tented; his cheeks were flushed with his excitement, or nerves; and yet there he sat, patiently waiting to please the older man.  Tony reached to affectionately brush back Peter’s hair, letting his hand rest at the back of his head.

“Open up.”

Peter obeyed without hesitation.  His jaw dropped open, tongue laying flat. His dark eyes rested expectantly on Tony. _Well,_ Tony thought, his pulse pounding in his ears, _no sense in making him wait._

Tony let his fingers curl gently into Peter’s hair, taking a handful into his fist. He pushed his hips forward, using his free hand to guide his cock, watching fixedly as the tip disappeared into Peter’s mouth. _Fuck._

He eased Peter into it, starting with slow, shallow thrusts of his hips, giving him a chance to get used to it. When he began to test him, pushing just a little deeper, Peter let out a quiet, muffled moan against Tony’s cock. The sound sent a shiver through Tony, and he tightened his grip on Peter’s hair. When the younger man pulled back, freeing his lips to softly, eagerly ask for _more,_ Tony readily obliged.

All of his senses felt heightened as he allowed himself to sink into the euphoria of the moment. The wet sounds of Peter’s mouth around his cock; the trails of shining, dripping spit that slicked Peter’s lips and chin; the way he _pushed_ into Tony’s movements, nearly gagging; Tony felt it all building to a peak inside him. He began to push faster, firmer, so focused on the agonizing thrill of fucking Peter’s mouth that it took him a moment to notice the younger man’s hand moving to his own lap, rubbing eagerly against the bulge in his shorts. His skin prickled with excitement at the sight, knowing that Peter was so turned on he couldn’t help but touch himself; but, from what he had seen of Peter’s desires, his longing to be _good_ for the older man, Tony knew it could be so much better still.

Abruptly, he pulled out of Peter’s mouth, raising his free hand to wag a finger.

“Ah-ah,” he breathed, feeling a resurgence of confidence as the young man’s wide, questioning eyes turned upward.

“Hands off.”

He hardly held it together, this unfurling show of dominance, as he drank in the image of Peter. His lips were reddened and wet, his chin and throat glistened with his saliva, his eyes were alight with excitement and desperation. Like a scolded child, Peter frowned, taking his hand away from his cock.

“Behind your back.”

Obediently, Peter clasped his hands together behind his back. He let out a small noise of surprise as Tony firmly tugged his hair.

“Good boy,” he murmured. Peter, unprompted, opened his mouth once again. Tony exhaled. _Shit._

“That’s right…”

Tony began to fuck Peter’s mouth again, harder now. Peter was perfect, taking Tony’s cock with an eager expression, the indecent sounds of his mouth mixing with the needy hums resonating in his chest. Looking down at the younger man, Tony could feel the final build-up setting fire to his nerves and muscles, drawing inward throughout his core. His fist twisted in Peter’s hair, drawing a muffled whimper from the younger man. Then, despite the drive of his desire, he untangled his fingers from Peter’s curls, lowering his hand.

“I’m gonna come,” he breathed, a gentle warning to allow Peter to pull away. He brought his hand to his cock, ready to finish, to let Peter be only as involved in that part as he was comfortable being. He expectantly watched Peter for his reaction, for the intoxicating sight of his wet cock sliding out of Peter’s mouth, for seeing if he might even unclasp his hands from behind his back and finish Tony the way he had started…but, despite Tony’s warning, and in complete defiance of what he had expected, Peter began to bob his head along with Tony’s thrusts. He showed no sign of wanting to stop, or to pull away. He looked up at Tony with bright, eager eyes, humming against his cock.

Tony came hard, letting out a stammered moan. Peter took over at that moment, enthusiastically sucking and tonguing at the head of Tony’s cock, continuing on until he had peaked and then begun the exquisite descent back. When the sensations became too much, Tony gently let Peter know it was time to stop. He held onto the edge of the counter for stability as he came down, eyes closed and breathing heavy, spent sighs. For a moment, he allowed himself to just savour the euphoria the young man had drawn out of him.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw Peter, still kneeling, his face turned downward. He self-consciously wiped his mouth and chin with the back of his hand. His arousal was still plainly evident in his too-loose boxer shorts. Tony breathed a soft laugh. He carefully adjusted himself, pulling up his trousers, and crouched down to the young man’s level.

Peter looked at him, his cheeks flushed, eyes betraying his nerves. Tony reached to touch his cheek, thumbing his lip before leaning in to softly kiss him. Peter sighed against Tony’s mouth. And then, as quickly as their kiss had begun, the older man drew back to stand.

“C’m here,” he said quietly, beckoning with a hand. Peter stood, following Tony as he walked round the kitchen island toward the lounge space. He led them to the couch, the same one Peter had spent so many evenings on, the one where Tony had so often watched him with quiet admiration.

Tony sat in the corner seat, cocking one leg up to rest his foot on the seat cushion.  He patted the open space between his legs. Peter sat, and Tony adjusted slightly, wrapping an arm around Peter to guide him back against his chest. He waited a moment for Peter to settle his nerves.

“It’s your turn,” he murmured. He could feel Peter’s rapid breathing against his abdomen, felt the young man tremble as Tony trailed a hand down his perfect torso. When his hand reached the waist of Peter’s boxers, he felt Peter’s breathing quicken even more. When asked, he helped Tony push his boxers down. Tony looked over Peter’s shoulder, admiring his sculptural form, smiling slightly at the sight of Peter’s uncut cock. _Makes things easier, that’s for sure._

As much as Tony adored this, the excited tension between their bodies, the nervous anticipation that kept Peter quieter than Tony had ever known him to be, he couldn’t keep him waiting any longer. Tony reached to wrap a hand around Peter’s cock. He felt the young man tremble again, heard him breathe a quiet sigh.

“Just relax,” Tony said softly. “Let me take care of you.”

Tony started slowly, rubbing Peter in long, even strokes. At first, Peter’s hands rested against his own thighs, as though he wasn’t sure what to do with them. Tony watched as they clenched and unclenched around handfuls of his boxer shorts. Every now and then, Peter would let out the smallest sound, a brief and quiet hum fleshing out one of his shuddering exhales. Tony wondered if it was the kind of sound he made when he was alone, getting himself off. He wondered if Peter thought of him when he did.

Peter shifted just slightly under Tony’s touch, adjusting to fit closer to him. He moved his hands, tentatively, to the other man’s legs. He gave them a gentle squeeze, bringing a smile to Tony’s face.

“Feels good?” Tony asked, letting his hand trail just a bit lower, palming Peter’s balls. The boy nodded, shivering under Tony’s touch.

“Mm – mmhmm…”

“Good.”

Tony took Peter’s cock back in his hand, quickening his pace, his free hand trailing gently over Peter’s shoulder and chest. He could feel the goosebumps rise on Peter’s skin.

“I want you to tell me when you’re close,” he gently instructed. Peter nodded again, letting out a shaking sigh. He leaned his head back against Tony’s shoulder.

It wasn’t long before Peter had begun to squirm in Tony’s lap, moving his hips in time with Tony’s strokes. Tony could feel the tension building in Peter’s body. The grip on his thighs tightened.

“’m close,” Peter sighed.

“And what do you want, Peter?”

The boy didn’t respond with words; his breathing had become more rapid, and each breath sounded with a soft hum of pleasure.

Tony stopped abruptly, placing his hand on Peter’s thigh. The younger man immediately let out a sound of surprise, arching, craning his neck to look round at Tony.

“No – no, please – ”

_“What do you want, Peter?”_

The desperate look in Peter’s eyes was enough to stir Tony again. If he had been a younger man, he might have already been up for another round.

It was easy to tell this part was hard for Peter. He couldn’t hide how much he wanted this, but he was a painfully self-conscious kid, and Tony knew the words didn’t come easily to him. At least, they didn’t leave his lips easily. When they finally did, Tony knew he felt them, felt the power and the vulnerability in them. Felt the release of giving himself over to Tony. He looked downward before he spoke.

“I want…I want you to keep touching me – please, Mr. Stark – I wanna come…”

Tony felt a rush at those words, and obligingly turned his attention back to Peter’s cock, jerking him off in rapid strokes, feeling the relief and the build-up in Peter’s body. The younger man’s fingers dug into Tony’s thighs, his entire body tensing, pressing firmly back against him. He came with a row of jolting, vocal sighs, Tony touching him in slower, even strokes as he began to come down. When his heavy breaths turned up in pitch and speed, Tony knew he was done. He took his hand away from Peter’s cock, just listening to his spent breaths, feeling each one against his torso. He was still for a few moments in the warmth and calm between them. The weight of Peter against his chest, completely _gone_ in his post-climax haze, felt perfect to Tony. He closed his eyes, resting his chin against Peter’s head.

When Peter’s breathing had just about returned to normal, Tony stretched with a grunt to grab a handful of tissues from the box on the coffee table. He reached around to clean up the mess on Peter’s stomach and chest. The moment he made contact with the younger man’s skin, however, Peter grabbed self-consciously for the tissue. Tony let it go, surprised by the suddenness of the boy’s response. He felt the beginnings of creeping concern fighting for purchase in the back of his mind.

Peter cleaned himself up before adjusting his shorts and sitting up out of Tony’s hold, leaning forward with his arms resting on his thighs, hands clasped together in his lap. Tony frowned, his mind latching onto Peter’s body language and running over all kinds of possible explanations for the immediate shift in his demeanour. Peter could be uncomfortable. He could regret what just happened. He could be embarrassed. He could feel something altogether worse than that. Tony’s stomach sank.

Despite his discomfort, Tony shifted his position, sitting up straighter. Tentatively, he reached out a hand and touched Peter’s shoulder. To his relief, the younger man didn’t flinch away.

“Hey…you alright?”

Peter was quick to nod, turning his head to give a tight-lipped, but genuine, smile. His face was still beautifully flushed. He turned it away again before speaking, so clearly shy in light of what had just happened between them.

“’m good,” Peter began softly. “Just…it’s a lot. I, uh…I wanted that for a really long time.”

The words were such a relief to Tony, and somehow so unexpected, that he struggled to compose a response. _Good. Me, too. I didn’t want to admit it, but I did._

He didn’t need to worry long about how to reply as Peter, still drawn inward, beat him to it.

“I’m gonna – I should go to bed.” He gestured with his thumb, glancing over his shoulder down the corridor before meeting Tony’s gaze. “Got, uh…got a lot of stuff I gotta…figure out, tomorrow.”

Tony nodded, giving Peter a smile that mirrored the one the boy had worn moments before. He watched as Peter stood, adjusted his boxers again, and walked around the couch to leave the room. He paused as he looked into the kitchen, surveying the countertop he had left littered with the elements of his uneaten midnight snack.

“Oh, sh – sorry, I gotta clean that up.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tony replied, standing up and sticking his hands in his pockets, nodding his head in the direction of Peter’s rooms. “Just – get some sleep.”

Tony could see the briefest hint of protest in Peter’s expression; he had been raised well by his aunt and uncle, and knew better than to leave a mess for someone else to clean up. But Tony’s assurance – _don’t worry about it_ – eventually won out. Peter gave a slight nod, and one last smile.

“Okay…um, thanks.”

He turned and headed down the corridor. Tony watched him go. When he reached the door to his rooms, he turned to look back.

“Goodnight, Mr. Stark.”

“Goodnight, kid.”

With a quiet click, Peter shut the door. Tony watched the spot he had stood in moments before, saw the crack at the bottom of the door become illuminated by the light flicking on inside Peter’s rooms. He stood where he was for a moment, eyes unfocusing as his body began to register just how tired he felt. Sighing, Tony headed into the kitchen to put away what Peter had left out.

Once he’d finished, and despite his exhaustion, Tony found himself returning to the lounge area. He sat in the same spot he’d occupied minutes earlier, slouching low to rest his head on the back of the couch. He closed his eyes, appreciating the feeling of relief it offered, though tired as he was his mind still wandered. He could hear the quiet movements of Peter behind his door, settling in for the night. His head conjured images of the young man moving about in the space he had so happily made his own over the course of the summer. The memory brought a smile to Tony’s face – Peter had been so proud to have a space to call his own. And for a good while, he had seemed just as excited about the prospect of moving into residence at MIT.

Tony hadn’t expected the revelations of earlier this evening – his stomach churned at the memory – and he felt completely unsure of what to expect from Peter the next day. Until tonight, he had felt certain Peter was prepared for the next steps. He had had no idea just how complicated things had become, and still had no idea how _long_ they’d been so complicated for the young man. He wondered with a sinking feeling if the events of tonight had only served to muddy the waters for Peter even more. An expert at overthinking, Tony sat for some time, letting his mind troubleshoot dozens of situations that might never actually come to fruition. It solved nothing, he knew.

When the sounds of Peter moving about behind his closed door eventually slowed, and when Tony glanced down the corridor to see that the sliver of light at the bottom of the door had disappeared, he decided he had sat up worrying quite long enough. He stood, stretching his tense muscles with a groan, and headed toward his rooms.

Tony paused for just a moment outside of Peter’s door, his interest shamelessly piqued when he heard the young man’s voice, low and soft. He couldn’t make out what he was saying, nor did he truly want to eavesdrop on the kid, but he couldn’t help but wonder who he could be speaking to at this time. He hoped Peter truly felt alright. He knew far too much time still had to pass before they would speak about it again in the morning. He hoped sleep would take him, a small mercy to make the night pass a little quicker.

He continued on down the corridor, letting himself into his rooms, stripping down to his underwear and leaving his clothes in a heap on the floor by the bed. He flopped unceremoniously onto his mattress, breathing an enormous sigh.

_Well, shit._


	4. Chapter 4

Tony often had trouble sleeping, and to his dismay, this night was no exception. It didn’t help that he couldn’t stop replaying what had happened that evening, going over every detail, remembering each exquisite sensation and each rush of nervous excitement. Though most of his thoughts were pleasant, already beautifully hazy with the forgiving veneer of memory, he couldn’t help but worry, all the same. For every _How the hell does the kid know how to kiss like that?_ , there was a _Jesus Christ, Tony – he’s seventeen!_ , and as the night wore on, it was the second voice that gained traction in his mind. He remembered it wasn’t so long ago that he had first met Peter, just a kid from Queens trying to make his neighbourhood a little better, and how young he had seemed then. It was undeniable that the boy had grown immeasurably over the past nearly three years, not least because of his initiation into the Avengers, but it was that number – seventeen – that admonished him. It didn’t matter that it would tick up to eighteen in a matter of weeks. This had happened now, tonight, and Tony had never felt closer to fifty than to forty, nor further from his youth.

Tony knew that the conversation the next morning wouldn’t be easy, and that was just with all the unpacking that he himself would need to do. He didn’t even know what to expect from Peter. He _had_ seemed okay when he had gone off to bed. It reassured Tony a little to remember that Peter was, despite his best efforts, a terrible liar. If he had felt badly about the evening, Tony felt sure he would have been able to tell. But, then again, this had been a night of firsts, and these were unfamiliar waters between the two of them. Despite his attempts to reassure himself that everything was fine, everything would _be_ fine, Tony felt himself slipping beneath the waves. It was a relief when the darkness finally began to close in around him.

The smallest _creak_ jerked Tony back from the welcoming embrace of sleep, some moments later. He opened his eyes to near complete darkness, save for the dim sliver of light that grew to accommodate a familiar silhouette, and then slowly shrank back to a sliver. Another small creak, just the same as a moment before, and the quietest whispered _shit_. As sleep-addled as he was, Tony couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

He lay there in silence, listening to the soft padding of Peter’s feet against the floor, wondering if the boy had forgotten something in the room earlier. His drowsy brain played it out for him as though he were watching it with the lights on: Peter walking around to the other side of the room, stooping to where he’d left his backpack before – but hadn’t he taken it with him when he left the room? – and slinging it over his shoulder before turning and heading back out. The most likely of all reasons for Peter to have returned. It had to be. But that image, a half-conscious dream spun in an overtired mind, dissipated into the air around him as Tony felt the gentlest pull on his bed linens. And then, quiet as a mouse, Peter climbed painstakingly slowly into the bed.

Tony lay perfectly still as Peter settled, wondering if the boy assumed he’d been sneaky enough to creep into the room without waking Tony. The thought brought forth the most wonderfully warm feeling in Tony’s chest. His heart beat faster as the comfort and relief of Peter’s presence untangled some of the web of worry Tony had woven in his mind.

For several moments they laid there, Tony with his back to Peter, and Peter motionless just inches away. The sweetness of this turn of events was a salve on the raw anxiety Tony had been afflicted with so much of the night. He could hear Peter’s shallow breaths as he lay still behind Tony. He could smell him, the lingering scent of his drug store shampoo so recognizable and unchanging since they’d met, mingled with the mild and familiar smell of his body. Tony didn’t think he’d ever really noticed it before that night, but in the silence, with nothing to distract his senses, it was so clear to him, so obviously and distinctly _Peter_. It comforted him.

Tony’s mind and body were at odds as he lay so close to Peter, his thoughts encouraging him to roll over, to let him know he was awake, to take a shot at moving closer. His body was defiantly still, as though held in place by a massive, unseen hand.   _Come on, Tony. He’s right there. He wants to be here with you._ He counted down in his mind dozens of times, telling himself to move when he reached one. Each time, he hesitated.

And then, with the courage of someone who had fought the same hesitation long enough before deciding, _fuck it – what have I got to lose?,_ Peter himself squirmed closer to Tony, curling up against the older man’s back. He let out a soft, nasal sigh. Tony could feel his breath against his skin.

“I know you’re awake,” came Peter’s voice, a half-whisper to gently break the silence.

“Well, you’re not as stealthy as you think you are.”

Peter’s laugh was soft, breathed out through his nose. Tony felt the boy’s forehead come to rest against his back, and then Peter’s arm made its way around Tony’s waist. He shifted closer, fitting his body as close to Tony’s as he could.

“You alright?” Tony asked.

“Mm.” Peter squeezed Tony around the waist, nuzzling his back. “Just didn’t wanna be alone.”

Tony, still timid despite the clearly affectionate gesture by the younger man, tentatively curled his arm around Peter’s, taking his hand and squeezing it. Peter squeezed Tony’s waist in return, letting out a happy, quiet hum. He placed several gentle kisses against Tony’s back, each one bringing an even greater calm over the older man. He pulled Peter’s hand up to his, kissing his palm, and then brought it back to his waist, threading his fingers through Peter’s. He idly ran his thumb back and forth over the younger man’s.

“Hey…who were you talking to, after…?” Tony eventually asked, recalling the bit of one-sided conversation he’d heard outside Peter’s rooms, unable to hide his curiosity.

“Oh, uh…Karen,” Peter replied, a shade bashfully. “Just…just wanted to tell somebody about it.”

Tony smiled at the sweetness of the admission. He squeezed his hand again, shifting to carefully turn and face Peter, their legs entwining as though they’d done this a thousand times before. With just as much ease, Peter squirmed snugly into Tony’s embrace, tilting his face up to lay the softest kiss on the older man’s jaw. He let out another contented sigh then, his breath hot against Tony’s chest. He curled up against Tony with his arms tucked up tightly between their torsos. Tony encircled him, tugging his bed linens completely up over them both. Within moments, Peter was fast asleep, his breathing changing from shallow inhales and silent exhales to the gentlest, quiet snore.

Tony couldn’t understand how things had changed so quickly, or why in this instant, after all the turmoil of the evening, these changes felt so right. It hadn’t been long at all since his own mind had vilified and antagonized him about what had happened, sending him spiraling into a mess of contradictory thoughts and so many kinds of fear. It was a complicated situation in more ways than one, and Tony knew that an important conversation still awaited them in the morning. Peter’s whole life was about to change, yet again, and he needed to be able to grow into that new life without being held back. Tony’s life had been torn in two just months earlier, and as much as he had adjusted to his new routine, he was still healing, rebuilding, and rediscovering who he was on his own.  Nothing about this was simple. He knew they were both acutely aware of that.

But thinking of the next morning, of what awaited them then, he didn’t feel the same kind of fear he had when he’d been alone in his bed. Here now, with Peter sleeping soundly in his arms, he wondered if things might be okay, after all.  

**Author's Note:**

> starkersbazaar.tumblr.com <3


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